《反思法国大革命》是一本由[英]埃德蒙·柏克著作，上海社会科学院出版社出版的平装图书，本书定价：29.80，页数：310，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。
《反思法国大革命》精选点评：
●革命很糟糕 没有改革更糟糕 精英阶层自然会反对一切导致改变社会阶层的事情
●“只要我们稍稍回忆和思考一下，就会明白：法国事实上存在两个“恐怖时代”。一个在感情冲动下进行屠杀，一个是冷漠地、蓄意地进行屠杀。一个只持续了数月，一个则持续了千年以上。一个使千余人死亡，一个则使一亿人丧生。可是我们只是对那个小规模的、短暂的恐怖时代感到恐惧。然而，刀斧在一瞬间带来的死亡，能够比得上饥饿、冷酷的侮辱、残忍和悲痛的慢性屠杀吗？闪电在一瞬间带来的死亡，能够比得上炮烙之刑的慢性屠杀吗？”
●柏克对1789年革命的解读。长信，论理。
●现代英美保守主义奠基作，精准预言出“毁灭性的破坏终将导致一种新的专制主义强权的出现”，书中还有许多幽默犀利的比喻。
●配合《法兰西风格》食用更佳。柏克从经验主义、贵族、基督徒的视角审视对岸的大革命，必然格格不入（哪怕他自诩“农民”也忽略大革命实现保护小农的政策）。第二部分关于选举、粘合地方势力和财政失败的吐槽比较过瘾。但在理论中逃不出英式思维特点——经验、先例、自由……忘了大革命理性启蒙的力量、法国文人的力量、民众决绝的力量和束缚之重——只会对牛弹琴。
●读的很累，学术性不强，创见少。
●译文偶有错误，还算流畅，将段落大意分节的做法，有利有弊。对我这种原文阅读能力差，常需要中英对照的菜鸟来说，倒是好事，希望不是饮鸩止渴吧。与98年版标题对比，可见作者态度和当下思想风向。
●基于经验主义的保守思想，事实证明，纯粹的逻辑正确并不能带来良好的结果
●一则穿透数百年的预言...
●萨拜因的评价中肯：“法国的种种事变使他惊恐万状，丧失了判断力上的平衡，暴露了他在此前以体面的方式遮掩起来的种种仇恨，并且发表了滔滔不绝的不负责任的言论——在这些言论中，他的公允姿态、他对历史的判断以及惯于驾驭事实的本领也在很大程度上失之不存了。”
《反思法国大革命》读后感(一)：王国的宪法不是算术问题
英格兰人民的幸运之处在于本国的士大夫们成功地托古改制，利用古老的日耳曼传统发展出了近代的英国宪政。英国议会的原则不似法国那般诉诸抽象的理性，而是由上古三代之治时的部落民主演化而来。即便是废立君主这样革命性的行为，也披上了一层因循守旧的色彩。理性设计对一个具有复杂结构的共同体来说，其发挥的作用始终是破坏性和瓦解性的。
人类有限的理性无法穷尽社会演化的复杂性，最为妥贴的选择是交由一双无形之手来完成。未能形诸文字的风俗与传统蕴含着先贤们治理社会的真正智慧。
不存在抽象的人与抽象的权利，一切基于虚构演算的制度设计都会给社会带来灾难。
国家的治理应当交给具有丰富经验的政治家，而不是善于思考的理论家。
《反思法国大革命》读后感(二)：收获不如想象大
旧制度和大革命之后，翻开这本书之前是有很高期待的。狄更斯在几十年后从英伦三岛上回望那个最好也是最坏的时代，曾经造就了双城记这本名著，作为大革命的同时代旁观者，也是保守主义代表人物的伯克，他眼中的大革命又有哪些洞见。远邪的同学整理了一个很有远邪风格的读书笔记，更有参考价值。在这里就谈谈个人感受。
可惜前面虽然称不上晦涩，也远远不是通俗易懂。对王权的推崇和对民主的否定至少从我看来缺乏决定性的论据支持，辞藻再有老牌绅士的优雅华丽也没用。后面对宗教以及教士阶级的讨论也是如此。如果今日有一作家将反对民主制、歧视犹太人、鼓吹宗教特权等等内容写成一书，恐怕出版都是难事吧。
唯一值得佩服的大概是从对军队的分析中预言了军政府的诞生和拿破仑的兴起。
《反思法国大革命》读后感(三)：《反思法国大革命》出版说明
《反思法国大革命》自1790 年出版以来，两百多年不断印行，在世界上有广泛持久的影响。
2003 年耶鲁大学出版社出版了由欧洲思想史名家，耶鲁大学教授弗兰克·M. 特纳（Frank M. Turner）领衔编辑整理的新校注本，引起学术界高度重视，公认是当今《反思法国大革命》最为权威的善本。
启蒙编译所根据此版本安排翻译，力求在忠实原文的基础上尽量做到语言清晰，文风畅达，尽量展现出原著一气呵成的激昂文采。
启蒙编译所遴选译者较为严格，不慕虚名高位，只唯实力态度。译者受过严格的学术训练，有相当的文字功底，更有百万字的翻译经验，加之态度严谨，因此，这个译本达到了预期，是一个值得读者信赖的译本。
如此重要的学术经典，理应有多个译本共存。我们相信将来还会有更好的译本，所谓后出转精，这是读者的幸事，也是学术规律。
译者将柏克本人的注释标记为“原注”，将特纳教授的注释标记为“编者注”，以示区别。此书原是柏克写的一封长信，为方便阅读，我们按照内容划分了章节，拟定了标题，编辑了目录，并在书后附了译名对照表，供读者参考。
《反思法国大革命》读后感(四)：On Burke’s Reflections on the revolution in France
In this article, I would like to do three jobs. First, I want to go through the reading material and try to summarize it in my way and give my comment on each part of it. Second, I will try to do synthesis of Burke’s idea based on my previous summarization. Third, I will try to apply Burke’s idea to some specific real life issues and see what issues Burke’s ideas are suitable for and what issues Burke’s ideas are not able to deal with. In another word, I try to test the limitation of Burke’s ideas in my third part.
urke’s reflection on the French Revolution is not a clear and well-organized system as todays social science. His idea was conveyed in a letter to his French noble friend mixed with sentiments of nostalgia for monarchic France and life before enlightenment and fear that some people in England might be aroused up by the French revolutionary doctrine.
In my reading material, Burke starts with a confliction between a metaphysical abstraction and a circumstantial aspect of politics. He believes that the scholars on the revolutionary pulpits are only familiar with vague metaphysical ideas and have no idea about how politics work. Meanwhile, he is in favor of investigation of real life political circumstance and substantial rights of people. This is an everlasting confrontation in his reflection of French Revolution: abstract rights and ideas VS substantial circumstance. I will deal with the specific means of such things later when the timing is appropriate.
ext, Burke goes directly into the challenge of power controlling. It is the most prominent challenge casted by people like Dr. Price, “the old Jewry”. The main claim of them is that people should have rights to choose and cashier their own governors and form a government for themselves. Burke’s answer to these quests is generally functionalism. He looks back to history and interprets the history as a loyal and subservient history to the monarchy. He answers the question of monarchic legitimacy by laws and provisions, not by whether monarchy is good for the society and how and why. In his logic, the almighty and always-right ancestors of us made laws for us and we should obey them. When confronting some severe tyrannies like James II, our ancestors and lawmakers still put our rights and liberties with hereditary monarchy, thus we Englishmen should always do the same later.
ut there are still some very interesting points among these boring functionalism explanations. When dealing with the challenge that people should have rights to cashier their own government with misconducts, he makes a very interesting question about the precise meaning of misconducts. What does a misconduct consist of？ Who should have the right to interpret a misconduct as severe enough to overthrow the government, or even the whole monarchy？ In another word, is it possible to construct a governing when the subjects have rights to challenge the legitimacy by their arbitrary rights of interpreting misconducts？ I think this is the main concern of Burke when confronting with the vague words, the metaphysics doctrines, the old Jewry like Dr. Price, and enlightenment in the end. In Burke’s view, these people challenge the basic foundation of governing. The foundation of power of monopolizing what is right and what is wrong. If such power of value judgement is hold by the monarchy steadily, governing would be steady. If not, governing is in danger. He believes that enlightenment disrupts the value order and threaten the governing of monarchy. Kant’s definition of the Enlightenment is that people should have rights to use their reasoning publicly and overtly. Such doctrines have a devastating impact on the legitimacy of monarchy. If people start to use their reasoning to question the moral and value justification of monarchy, monarchy is in danger. Such basic values shall not be questioned ever. This is why he tells a lot against enlightenment in the end of his letters.
o the next logical question is that should there be a virginal area untouched from questioning and interrogation of human’s reasoning when a governing is working. Burke’s answer to it is definitely yes. He continues questioning the what are the erroneous and true concepts of rights of men. For me, it is a direct answer to my previous question. He believes that the erroneous concepts of rights of men are those concepts believing that people are entitled with infinite rights to question everything. “Against these there can be no preｓｃｒｉｐｔion, against these no agreement is binding; these admit no temperament and no compromise; anything withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice.” Please notice that Burke uses the word “fraud and injustice”, not “incorrect”, which infers that Burke’s intention here is about the power of interpretation of what is right and wrong morally. Burke believes that if people are entitled with infinite rights of using reasoning to question everything, there will be no governing. The reason is that there will be no limitation of the subjects. In a real world politics, subjects should be limited and give up some of their rights so that a governing could be constructed. It is in the pure state of nature where powers of people can be unlimited and such states of natures are disastrous according to Hobbes. In Burke’s language, “One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is that no man should be judge in his own cause……He abdicates all rights to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defense, the first law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together.” For example, there are always some fundamental ideas remaining untouched from being challenged in every society. Political correctness in US shall not be challenged. Communist Party of China shall not be challenged. A challenge to the American Black’s rights today is as provocative as a challenge to monarchy in terms of such virginity. They consist of the base of society and states. Such virginity can only be detained stained in revolution, not in ordinary daily life. The fear of Burke toward French Revolution and Enlightenment is that such stain might diffuse to England and threat England’s peace. What interests me here is the range of virginity. Maybe the distinction between a closed society and an open society is different virginal range. Maybe a small range of virginity which can hold on in time and space is a good thing for society and state. If the governing is based on a huge unchallengeable territory and such territory is overlapping with basic human rights too much, this type of governing is a tyranny.
ext, Burke exams the true nature of government. One part of the nature of government is what I said previously. I will not discuss them anymore. Another interesting part is about Burke’s idea on the science of constructing a commonwealth. Burke believes that such science is on experience, not is taught a priori. This belief reflects some fundamental insights on statecrafts and how to deal with political science. I think Burke is half right here and he is a really insightful observer concerning with unintended consequence and complex society. Burke’s belief here is observation and interpretation. It is hard to reason a personal perception empirically. But it is worth explaining my personal understanding of his perception. When dealing with real life politics, one shall not just apply some model priori to experience and apply them arbitrarily. For example, democracy and market economy are generally good things. But, when applied to Iraq, it caused disaster. It is not because democracy and market economy are bad inherently. It is because democracy and market economy shall be shaped in a suitable way to Iraq. It is the same with Soviet Union’s reformation. Professor Sachs is either naïve or evil. You just cannot shut everything down and give all the stocks of state own enterprises to every citizen and wait for an emergence of market economy. We Chinese are not familiar with mainstream social science in the west at all in the late 70’s and early 80’s. They just started the reformation little by little, which happened to be in a scientific way unknown to Chinese at that time by luck. Finally, the reformation succeeded. I do not regard political science as purely experience. It is statecrafts, not political science, that are experience. Political science is largely based on deductive theory. When one trying to apply political science to real life politics, one should be cautious and master the arts of analysis. Then hopefully things might go well.
When dealing with the nature of government, Burke mentions a particular type of intellectuals which interests me a lot. These metaphysics theorists tend to be not prudent and interpret everything which does not work as they predict as wrong within the reality, not wrong within their reasoning and theory. Such people shall not be given the rights to power. Then, who shall be entitled with power according to Burke？
When stating the errors of the French Revolution, Burke points that only people with merit shall be entitled with power. “There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive.” In actual, he means people like himself, who go through the ladder of power with tremendous hardship shall be given power. In presumptive, he refers to those with property or good title shall be given power. In the reasoning of property, Burke believes those with property have the merit of prudence. “Everything ought to be open, but not indifferently, to every man.” In the French case, he despises the members of National Assembly, which consists of unqualified mass according to his point of view.
An interesting point here is to investigate the empirical impact of property on political merits. It is off the topic of Burke, but it is worth considering. Property means prudence, I agree. Property may result in both selfish and altruism. One with a huge property may serve himself or herself entirely to the state because he or she has no more pursuit of wealth. But it is still conceivable that one with immense property to put himself or herself upon the states. Beyond these, the problem here is that a power system based purely on title and property cannot respond to fundamental change properly. If the rulers are in favor of fundamental change, they may embrace it. If not, they may thwart it.
Hence, the fundamental problem with Burke is that his theory is reactionary to fundamental systematic changing. He is in favor of slow and steady changing. His idea is a deep insight on the base of governing and real life statecrafts. But his system does not answer to profound changes, the inevitable changes threating some basic values and the monopoly of value interpretation. There is always an underlying motion, a revolutionary and critical tension threating the whole system. His theory cannot respond to such things.
Finally, I would like to apply his theory to American presidential election and see which parts of his theory can work and which parts cannot work. I am tired now and I want to make it concise.
I think this American presidential election is just an ordinary change within the constitution of US. It has nothing to do with overthrowing the constitution so Burke has nothing to comment on the legitimacy of presidency as he does in defending monarchy in England. Burke might be interested in Trump’s provocative and demagogy speeches. He may not render it as despicable as the metaphysics theorist’s words. Trump’s words are still in the system of presidency. It does not change the democracy to dictatorship or something like that. He might suggest the next president’s policy should be prudent and the experience of politics should be considered.
In conclusion, I believe that Burke’s idea is reactionary to fundamental change and open to gradual improvement. He has a really insightful understanding on real life politics and deserves careful consideration.